


appropriation of equipment (and cold cases)

by chasing_the_sterek



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clever John Watson, Experiments, Fluff, I don't know any more, I had to cut it tho, I think?, I tried to do a 221b, John Watson is a Good Doctor, John is bored, M/M, Science, Sherlock was originally meant to kiss John at the end, Sorry Not Sorry, as you can see this went badly wrong haha, attempted humour, honestly, i'm very tired, this is not a real science experiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: Sherlock has been away. Not for long, but long enough that John has resorted to his box of precious cold cases out of sheer boredom.





	appropriation of equipment (and cold cases)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anarion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarion/gifts).



> Yo!
> 
> Surprise!
> 
> It feels like it took me forever and a day to get this back to you, Anarion, so sorry about that! I kept trying to write something inspired by _Between Hay and Grass_ but I couldn't get it to work. Hopefully this is an acceptable substitute ;)

"Is that my equipment?"

It's a testament to the kind of people John was often partnered with in school science lessons (from primary through to medical) that he doesn't drop the beaker he's holding. He doesn't make an outward sign of alarm, either, miraculously enough, even though his pulse spikes harshly; though he suspects that's due to military training more than secondary school's infamous Trevor Dent.

"What does it look like I'm doing, Sherlock?" John asks. He ignores the smoke pouring out of the solution in his conical flask and bends his head ever-so-slightly to watch for a precipitate.

"Stealing my lab equipment."

Sherlock's feet pad forwards, John can hear the footsteps. There's quiet breathing above his shoulder, just to the right and slightly back.

 _"Borrowing_ your lab equipment."

 _"Appropriating_ my lab equipment," Sherlock insists, and then pauses and says, ". . . to solve a cold case?"

He sounds confused. John is too busy mentally counting the solution's reaction time to bother explaining, so he waves a dismissive hand and says, "Bored."

"I'm feeling an odd sense of role reversal," Sherlock notes.

John snorts a little. The temptation to demand tea is extraordinarily high, but he resists. "Even I crack eventually, Sherlock. You were gone for two and a half weeks, I wasn't needed for any locum work, there were cold case files lying about. Of course I had a look through."

Sherlock is leaning over his shoulder, now. "And you found one you could solve yourself?"

He sounds almost insultingly surprised.

John says, "I did go to medical school."

(He doesn't mention that Sherlock has just given away not ever having read through the files like he'd told John he had when he left. He'd have mentioned the case he's thought John would be working on by name, then. Idiot, thought he wouldn't notice.)

Sherlock is humming. "So you did," he agrees. And then: "Isn't this rather a lot of smoke?"

John thinks he mutters something about gaseous byproducts of the chemical reaction, but the precipitate is starting to form and his attention has drifted almost entirely from the conversation.

"Turn white, turn white, turn white," John chants under his breath.

"Willpower does nothing to an experiment's results," Sherlock tells him, but he's leaning closer, scientific curiosity and the pull of a case's finale combining into a kind of magnetism even the great Sherlock Holmes cannot resist.

The precipitate goes white.

John whoops, elated, and springs upright, arms in the air but simultaneously scrambling for his phone. Sherlock's wobbly stool tips just a shade too far and he topples -

But doesn't hit the floor.

He opens his eyes. Sherlock has one eyebrow raised down at him. "All right, there?"

"Text Lestrade," John says, staring up at him, suspended. "Tell him the boyfriend did it."

A momentary pulling together of eyebrows. "What boyfriend?"

"The one with an emerging medical degree, who went mysteriously missing from one of his biology classes after a strange phone call and hasn't been seen since."

Sherlock beams.


End file.
